Reality & Nightmares
by One Unable to Become Spirit
Summary: Rinny is sent by her doctor to an institution meant to help patients suffering from phobias. Once there, Rinny and six others take turns going to mysterious chambers to confront their worst nightmares. When the patients emerge from the chamber, they feel emboldened by the previous night's experiences. But each person soon discovers strange aches and pains. What is really happening?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This takes place in a more modern time, Also this story is completly fan base, none of the following happend in Letter bee and nothing like it probably will. enjoy...****Oh, and the title is rubbish but It's a bit late and I kind of just wanna post it now.**  
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Disclaimer: Tegami Bachi (Letter Bee) and its characters belong to Hiroyuki Asada. Rinny, Berserker, and anyone else you see that's not in Tegami Bachi belong to my boyfriend Henry and I.  
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**Story info: Rinny is sent by her doctor to an institution meant to help patients suffering from phobias. Once there, Rinny and six others take turns going to mysterious chambers to confront their worst nightmares. When the patients emerge from the chamber, they feel emboldened by the previous night's experiences. But each person soon discovers strange aches and pains. What is really happening to the seven teens? What is really going on in this institute?**

**Chapter 1**

Rinny Besting, S167  
DR.. STEVENS  
6.12.2010

"There are more like you. You're not the only one, Rinny." Dr, Stevens said as I came in the room.

"How do you mean, more like me?" I asked confused.

"You're not the only one who's afraid. Lots of people your age are afraid of things. The world can feel scary when you're seventeen. But for some people, like you, certain things are much scarier than they should be. You know this. We've talked about it. But you don't have to be alone; there are others like you."

"Why are you telling me this?" I don't know why but I was started to get nervous. I looked at my Dingo Berserker. He was a young boy but he had the appearance of a werewolf. I found him the day my biggest fears came to life… also known as the day of the flicker…

"I was looking at my notes before you came in today." Dr. Stevens continued. "We've been meeting a long time. Too long, Rinny. Do you trust me, Rinny? Really trust me?"

"I guess so. Sure." I shrugged.

"Then I'll tell you the truth. I can't help you. I want to, but I can't. And there are others like you, six to be exact. six others I can't help. six others who are afraid like you are afraid. And there's a place I want you all to go."

"You mean me and six others that I've never met before? How old are they?"

"the youngest are Lag and Sylvette, they are twelve. Then comes Zazie at fourteen, then Conner and Sunny at fifteen, and last but not least Jiggy and his seventeen like you."

"I don't want to go. You can't make me." I said like a stubborn two year old.

"Your foster parents want you to go. I've already asked them. I think they might be growing tired of our lack of progress. One hundred and sixty-seven sessions, Rinny. Over two years. Don't you see? I can't help you. But I think someone else can."

"Where's this place I'm not going to, and who are these people I won't be meeting when I don't get there?"

After that the screen on his phone lit up, and he glanced away from me as I watched. Dr. Stevens was a tall, fit man of about forty. he was blond, handsome and wore smart, rimmed glasses, all of which were a constant distraction. he had a crooked front tooth, which should have marred an otherwise beautiful face, but it was disarming and natural.

Excusing himself, he left the room, which was on the third floor of a converted row house that he shared with three other counselors. he left the door a few inches ajar; and I knew when his foot touched the fifth step down, because the stair creaked loudly enough for me to hear from inside the room. Far away, at the bottom of the stairs, I heard the soft sound of a door closing. he'd gone outside onto the front porch to call someone, or so it seemed. The quiet hum of voices drifted in from another room like a cat purring down a dark alley, and I got up from my chair.

We'd been meeting for so long, it was as if Dr. Stevens was my uncle or a much older brother. Sometimes he'd eat lunch while we met; other times he'd take a break and go to the bathroom or to the kitchen downstairs, leaving me to rummage through his things as I waited for the sound of the fifth step on the stairs.

he should have known better then to leave me alone. he shouldn't have scared me like he did. Looking through his things had become a bad habit, like shoplifting a newspaper you weren't even going to read and then finding you were taking something that wasn't yours every time you walked into a store. That's the way it is with secrets. They pile one on top of the other until it's like a house of cards that requires a lot of work to maintain.

It's been a long time since I took my first file from Dr. Stevens' office. If I was building a house of cards, I'd be on my second deck by now. Looking back, there are a few sessions that stick in my memory more completely than all the others.

**SESSION NUMBER 12**

I thought Dr. Stevens might be reading my future in the tea leaves at the bottom of his cup, but he was only thirsty for more caffeine, fuel for another half hour with Rinny Besting. A few keystrokes on his laptop and down the stairs he went, leaving me alone in the room for the first time. I got up from my chair, sat in his, and looked at the screen of his laptop.

his computer was locked, but that was easily undone. Dr. Stevens was careless in his keystrokes, a password much too short and too easy for searching eyes like mine. I could only catch his fingers on the first two strokes—c and the a—then the dart of his skinny index finger up to the keys above. he punched five or five more keys with speed and precision as I pretended to look out the window, my head turned one way and my eyes another.

The password had started with c-a and probably continued up there, on that top row, with his long white pointing finger: a t.

cat

I won't lie; it was a thrill from the start, sitting in his chair with my fingers flying over the keys, trying to unlock his secrets. Secrets about me. About his.

catplay. catonroof. cathairball. catcatcat. catfood

The fifth step creaked, and I flew back into my own chair, gripping the wooden arms as Dr. Stevens reentered the room from behind me, his cup filled once more.

A half hour later as we said our farewell, my eye caught a line of books sitting on a his self. There were five, but only one mattered: the one with a blue background and a cat on the front tipping its striped hat and smiling happily.

catinthehat

A password I would come to know all too well.

**SESSION NUMBER 19**

I found my own folder, filled with audio transcripts. I'd known he was recording all of our sessions—even consented to it—but somehow seeing them, all stacked up with dates on them, bothered me. It was as if he'd dug deep into my soul and yanked out the secret parts, then stored them like little coffins in a meat locker.

**SESSION NUMBER 31**

I kept a chain around my neck after that, from which a silver medallion hung loosely under my shirt. The medallion was oval shaped—as thick as three sticks of gum—and if I pushed the middle, it was something more useful. If pushed hard enough the lower half reveled a flash drive, with space enough on it for many, many audio files.

I touched the folder marked Rinny Besting, dragged it across the screen, and fed its contents into my medallion.

**SESSION NUMBER 167**

And so it was that whenever Dr. Stevens left the room with his phone in hand, I took something more, something I'd told myself I wouldn't touch.

I was in, my heart racing as it always did when I sat in his chair. I'd long since found my way around. I knew wise all the patient audio files were. I could have listened to them at my leisure while lying on my bed at home. But I hadn't done that, not ever. I'd only ever taken my own things, because I'd felt then as I do now that they belonged chiefly to me, not anyone else.

There had always been a certain folder I'd wanted to explore. It was a folder that enticed me like the smell of feshed cook bread from our kitchen, reaching all the way down the hall and into my room.

**THE 7**

All the others folders had patient names or dates or benign categories attached to them. But this one—**THE 7**—what did it mean? he was a doctor, so it had to be seven patients. But why these seven? And why put their information in a folder by themselves, apart from all the others?

What had he said to me? I can't help you. I want to, but I can't. And there are others like you, six to be exact. Six others I can't help. Six others who are afraid like you are afraid. And there's a place I want you all to go.

I carefully inserted it into the USB port. I simply dragged the folder over to the drive and watched as dozens of audio files copied into my possession.

I didn't have to open the folder to know what I would find inside. I'd find my own name there. There were six others, and there was me.

I was one of the 7...

**A/N: Soooo what did you guys think of the first chapter? I bit to random? doesn't matter, it will start getting interesting once all the characters from Tegami Bachi show up. i promise :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I want to thank Briixzyanaa for my first review :D also thank you for catching my spelling errors. Also thanks Jiggy for being my second review. Both of you guys rock :]**

**Chapter 2**

During the months that followed, Dr. Stevens and my foster-parents tried to convince me that a week away from home was going to finally put my problem behind me. No one was calling the opportunity by its true name; instead they used the gentle hook of camp, as in summer camp, with a bunch of pals riding in canoes and shooting arrows. The arrows and the canoes and the pals, I knew, were not to be. I understood what I was really being asked to do and what they all thought of me. They imagined I was incurable. They were pulling out the stops, going for broke.

"We're looking for a breakthrough," my dad said, his eyes pleading for a yes and the tone in his voice suggesting that I was ten and the two of us were chums. "Dr. Stevens thinks it will work, and we believe him. Just give it a shot."

"Tell Rinny what she told us," my mom added, touching my dad's hand. "About this Lawrence fellow."

" He's some sort of genius. There's a program he offers right outside of the Capital, its very exclusive, very expensive. And Dr. Stevens' getting you in for practically nothing."

"You see? We only want the best for you," my mother added.

"Why can't I go alone?" I asked.

"Because it's a bunch of people working on this stuff together," my dad insisted. "It's not like seeing Dr. Stevens. It's different is all."

"You mean group therapy, like for crazy people."

My dad threw his hands up and walked into the kitchen, but then he turned back and put his palms on the dining-room table where my mom and I sat.

"Just think about it, okay? We think it's the best thing for you."

Weeks went by in which I pleaded with my foster parents, but there came a moment five days before my departure when I realized they weren't going to let me stay home. I knew this primarily because of Dingo Berserker, who was startlingly accurate about predicting my parent's intentions.

"You're going; it's already decided," he told me. We were sitting on the floor in my room playing monopoly. He was wearing the same red Pokemon hat, I gave to him when we met. He had it pulled down low so his hair spiked up around the sides of his ears.

"You're sure?" I asked. "They've got that look. It's over."

Berserker was about ten. He was quiet and mysterious like me, but a much better athlete. One day I remember I was killing him at a simple race—a meaningless achievement—and the next thing I know, he's wiping the floor with my face, which really mattered.

"Just go," he said, standing up to leave but hanging back to observe a little longer, "It's not going to kill you."

When I turned to look at him he was gone, like a ghost who'd delivered a crummy message only to disappear when I needed him the most. Sometimes I felt as if berserker was like the younger brother, I never wanted. I sat at my desk and stared out the window at the street below as my laptop whirled to life.

For the next three hours I listened to the voices of the seven—including my own— from the files I took from Dr. Stevens…Soon came the day of my departure. I was sitting on the far end of the carriage, with my Dingo. We were sitting alone in the corner since everyone seemed afraid of Berserker. It made me sad how the they would judge the little guy before getting to know him…

"Can you believe were force to go to some stupid place?" Zazie asked. Before I could answer, someone else broke in.

"It might be fun, like camp." Lag Seeing said, whose aunt had clearly sold the week to him in the same way it had been sold to me. Knowing what I knew about Lag, coupled with the fact that we were heading into the wilderness, I thought it was a miracle that he hadn't thrown open the carriage door and hurled himself onto the pavement.

A conversation ensued in the rows ahead of me, and my attention drifted back to Zazie. He had black hair and hazel/brown eyes, with pupils that looked nearly slits, much like a cat's pupils. He was noticeably short compared to the others, after a while I notice he was waiting for a reply. What had he asked me again?

_Can you believe were force to go to some stupid place?_

I shook my head no, I couldn't believe it. But the question had been around too long, and the answer didn't connect. I looked like an idiot.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah," I managed. "I'm fine. How are you?"

Oh my God, what a moron. My face was burning up. My tongue felt like sandpaper.

"I don't know," he said, "You're sure you're okay?" he asked again, leaning away from me as if I might throw up on his black t-shirt at any moment. And then it happened, the thing I'd feared would happen. My mind seized on a thought: I couldn't be the only one in this van who knew at least something about what was going down. Was everyone looking at me while I struggled to catch my breath? Everyone in this van was sick, sick with fear or something worse.

What's wrong with Rinny Besting? Hey, everyone, look at her. No, seriously. Look at her!

I kept telling myself to calm down, I knew better, everything was fine. These people had never met me, and I'd never met them. They'd never even met each other, so they weren't a clique I couldn't be a part of. I knew them better than they knew themselves. I knew their secrets and their fears. I knew they were just as messed up as I was.

If Dr. Stevens or my foster parents thought for one second I was going anywhere with any of them, they were sorely mistaken. I'd rather have my heart eaten by guichuu's… I stared out the window of the van after that awkward moment.

The van turned off the main highway onto a country road, and Dr. Stevens started talking. he told us we were heading into the mountains now and began reeling off instructions. This had the effect of shutting up everyone as he droned on about how we were all going to get to know each other, how great it was all going to be.

"I want each of you to think about this week as the beginning of the end," he instructed, turning onto a gravel road. "The end of the weight you've carried around for too long. Lean on each other, get to know one another. And let the process take its course."

I was getting my first look at these people after having heard their voices for weeks on end. There was Connor Kluff, a big guy with a crew cut, His hair black. His eyes were black but they seem closed. Lag Seeing, he had white hair and a single purple eye, the other eye is a piece of red Spirit Amber containing a Spirit Insect. From what I got from the sessions I listen into he has a very admirable and lovable personality. But he often loses his self control and tends to start crying a lot_._ Sylvette Suede had pale skin, white/silver hair, and blue eyes. She was in a wheelchair due to the fact her legs were paralyzed from birth. Sunny had orange reddish hair and freckles on her cheeks and from what I hear she makes really good cookies. Jiggy Pepper had dark haired, he was handsome and quiet.

There was a stillness in the group until we reached a locked gate across the road and Dr. Stevens got out of the van and opened it. After that we stayed in the carriage for another half mile, descending steeply into a thick forest of trees. The road was a washboard, jarring me so violently that my teeth chattered. I glanced at Lag, who was staring out the window like everyone else. I wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder and tell him this was all going to be okay, but I knew better. he'd lost interest in me like all the rest. I was a ghost to these people.

The road came to an end, and Dr. Stevens turned the carriage around, pointing it back up the steep road. The carriage doors were thrown open and everyone got out, strapping on backpacks bursting with provisions.

"Stay to the right, it's less than a mile," Dr. Stevens said. he was standing before us, one hand still on the door handle as if it was a life preserver.

Sunny, who was a head shorter than I was, turned ashen.

"You're not coming with us?"

I expected the rest of the group to laugh. Under different circumstances I'm sure they would have; but they were just as attached to Dr. Stevens as Sunny was, and we were standing in the middle of nowhere. None of us wanted to forge the path alone.

"This is the beginning of the end of your problems. Right here, right now," Dr. Stevens said. He looked at the ground and drew in a sharp breath, then his eyes were on me, pooling with tears. "You'll have to learn to trust one another." Dr. Stevens opened the van door and got in, staring at us through the open window.

"I can't fix you, but he can. A cure is waiting for each of you down that path."

And then, just like that, he was gone and we were alone…


	3. Chapter 3

**A/n: Briixzyanaa thanks again for reviewing, good luck on writing your fic. btw I added Jiggy Pepper to the story and took out my OC character Alex.**

**Chapter 3**

As we walked, I looked overhead from my position at the back of the line in search of the sun but couldn't find it. Tall trees full of green needles crowded the sky. We walked through deep forest, and a pair of crows cawed angrily, following us at a distance.

The path was wide enough for two people to walk side by side, and when we'd begun, it was Sunny and Connor at the front. Zazie had fallen into step with Lag Seeing, the two of them already acting as if they'd known each other a long time. Sylvette was the quietest of us all, the one I'd been most curious about, the one named Jiggy. he'd been in a bunch of foster homes during the past few years, and wasn't doing so well when we departed, either. Sylvette drifted back and fell into step at my side as I took a deep breath, the smell of pine and dirt kicked up on the path filling my lungs.

"Wow, he's quiet," Sylvette whispered in my direction. "Kind of like you."

I imagined Jiggy and me in a room, the blistering two-word conversation that would occur.

Hi, he would say.

Hi, I would say back.

A morbid silence would settle in, and we'd awkwardly stare at our shoes after that.

"It's the same for you, right?" Sylvette said after a while of me not listening to her. "You've never met any of them?"

"I don't know them," I said. Strictly speaking, this was a lie, I knew Jiggy. A long time ago we shared the same foster home, we never really talked much but he was a really cool person.

"Lag is cute," she said. "Too bad he's gay."

"Really?" I said, the word out of my mouth so quickly I couldn't take it back. I was having a conversation with her, or something like one.

"Sure he is. He spent the last five or six hours hitting on Zazie."

I didn't exactly see how this added up to Lag being gay, he could just want to be friendly with Zazie.

"Where do you go to school?" she asked me. "What grade are you in? Let me guess: junior, private school, very exclusive."

Wrong on all three counts, but I nodded yes. The truth? Home schooled, technically a Senior, but I'd been to so many foster homes it was kind of hard to keep up with my education, but it really didn't matter soon I would leave everything behind and become a letter bee.

"Whatever," she said after a while; and, just like that, the distance between us growing by the second.

"Wait," I said before she caught up to the rest. She turned her head

"What is it, Rinny? What do you want?"

I wanted to make a conversation with her. But I didn't. The closer I got, the more nervous I felt. My mind drew a blank, and I stared off into the trees.

Sylvette shook her head and started up the path until she caught up with Jiggy, where the two of them walked in silence. I hooked my thumbs behind the straps of my backpack and followed, watching the heels of their shoes kick up dust.

Everyone arrived at the fork in the path, gathering like a flock of ducklings behind Sunny and Connor.

"Come on, hurry up," Zazie yelled back at me, and the pack of six moved on toward the right. I coasted farther back because I knew we were getting close.

They were all gone, and I was alone at the fork, listening as their voices mingled with the wind in the trees and grew softer.

After a time, I couldn't hear them at all.

The path to the left could hardly be called a trail at all. Everything in the wild of the forest seemed to cave in on itself the deeper I went, leaving little more than a bead of dirt running a line through thick underbrush. The trees remained, swaying ominously over my head; and there were crows, more of them now, watching my every move like sentries on a castle wall. I sensed a clearing to my right and left the trail altogether, hoping to catch a glimpse of the other six and their dingo's. I looked at my dingo, Berserker had long fallen asleep on my back.. After a while I notice I was getting closer to the institute.

The place sent a chill of dread down my spine from the moment I saw it. Low slung to the ground, made entirely of concrete slabs crawling with moss and vines. My first impression was of a massive casket left alone in the woods for years and years, overrun by a menacing forest of gloom, the place looked like it was left over after the fall of mankind. The woods were still woods, but they were wild and tangled and dark. There were no perfect days here, no laughing people.

I saw them all—the six—standing in front of the institute with worried looks on their faces. Even confident Zazie was rattled.

"This can't be right," Conner said.

"We could go back," Zazie aid, which is when everyone seemed to notice all at once that I wasn't there. Words pinged sharply against my ears, as if they were fired from the barrel of a pellet gun.

Zazie: Aren't we missing someone?

Connor: Rinny! Hey, come out, man.

Lag: Should we go back and look for her?

Sunny: I'm just saying, if they think we're living in that thing for a week, they can forget it.

Sylvette: Seriously, Sunny?

Jiggy: (Sullen, voiceless).

I glanced from side to side, taking in the whole of the clearing, sizing up my options. There was the institute, a rectangle slab of hard corners with one giant door at the front and barred windows along its sides. A hundred feet to the left sat a smaller building, squared off at its sides and just as ghoulishly unappealing as the institute. I knew that was like a Bunker, whatever that meant. A huge, fallen tree lay against the Bunker where the trunk had snapped in two, the top half resting like a dead animal on the flat roof. The pinecones and needles of the tree were long since gone, replaced by a swarm of brown mushrooms and clumps of stringy green moss. On the other side of the institute, a pathway lead into the woods.

Before the others could make up their minds about whether they should go looking for me or climb the front steps and knock on the door to a menacing concrete institute, a person came out of the smaller building. I saw her first, because I'd been looking at the Bunker already. She was young, dressed as a person of the woods: a dark flannel shirt, work pants, boots. The woman walked morosely down the cobblestone path, slow and steady.

"Who feels like running?" asked Conner, too loudly, I thought. But then, he would be feeling the terror start to rise at the back of his throat. The deeper we'd gone on the path, the quieter he'd become. He was beginning to sense the presence of things he wanted no part of.

At the midway point of her journey between the Bunker and institute, the woman stopped. She was standing directly across from where I hid in the underbrush and was smelling the air like a dog catching a scent. Her gaze settled in my direction, and I had an uneasy feeling in my bones.

Did she see me.?

Later I would conclude that it had been a trick of the light through the trees. But at the time, hidden as I was and frozen in place, I was convinced that she'd searched the whole of the forest and settled her cobalt eyes directly on my face. Whoever she was, she had a severe face, emotionless and cold. Her hair was short and silver. She grew tired of staring off into the trees, and soon she was stomping up the concrete steps of the institute.

She seemed to take almost no notice of the bewildered group of teenagers until she'd cleared the last stair and turned on them.

"I'm Roda, the cook," she said sternly. Her voice was papery but strong. "Not your maid or your mother. Act like grown-ups and I won't spit in your food."

I got the feeling she was taking this opportunity to make her feelings known before the owner of the place could warn her to leave the guests alone. She hooked her thumbs into the pocket of her jeans. "I'm also the entire maintenance crew: plumber, fix-it woman—the works. If you see something in here you think might break, don't touch it."

Lag Seeing raised his hand.

"I don't remember saying I was a tour guide," Roda said. "But I'll take one question. Fire when ready."

"One of us is missing."

Roda appeared to be counting heads, as if Lag was either playing games or was just plain stupid.

"So I see," she offered. "Where did they go?"

Lag opened his mouth, but not fast enough to overcome Zazie's team captain persona.

"We think he might have tried to go back home," said Zazie, which was news to me.

"Speak for yourself," said Sylvette.

Roda waved off the entire thing as if it wasn't her problem and, with significant she pushed open the door of the institute.

"Remember what I said," she concluded. "I'm not a maid. And don't touch stuff."

For some unimaginable reason, Sunny walked up the stairs and past Roda. This seemed to spur an exodus from the grounds as Connor followed, then Zazie and Sylvette. Jiggy shrugged and climbed the concrete steps. Lag gave me one last try, turning to the path and raising his voice to the trees.

"We're going in, Rinny. If you're out there, we want you to come with us."

I wanted to yell back, You could come out here with me instead. You don't have to go inside.

But I couldn't do it. They'd all come running. They'd make me go with them, which was something that just couldn't happen.

Lag walked up the stairs, and Connor pushed the door closed behind him. Leaving me with my sleeping dingo, in a Gaichuu invested forest...


End file.
